There’s an Entry on Kavanaugh’s 1982 Calendar That Supports Ford’s Story Better Than His Own

Much of Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony Tuesday focused on calendars he kept in the summer of 1982, where he detailed a few months that consisted mostly of hanging out with friends and sports camps and, Kavanaugh pointed out, few weekends spent in the Washington area as he traveled to the beach and other summer destinations. He insisted that his calendars proved he could not have been present at a gathering like the one described by accuser Christine Blasey Ford—a small group of friends drinking at a house when no parents were home.* Kavanaugh maintained that he recorded all his social engagements and that no entry on his calendar matches the vague outlines of the get-together Ford detailed. But one entry shows that he went “to Timmy’s for skis w/Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, Squi.”

Ford had identified Mark Judge as in the room while Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her and said that “P.J.”—a man named Patrick Smyth—was elsewhere at the gathering. (Smyth denied to the Judiciary Committee being present at any such gathering.) Ford also noted that it appeared that Judge and Kavanaugh had been drinking beforehand and were far more intoxicated than the other people there.

In Thursday’s hearing, Kavanaugh was asked about the July 1 entry by Rachel Mitchell, the lawyer representing Republican senators, and replied, “It looks like we went over to Timmy’s” and identified the other boys who’d joined him. That was as far as that line of questioning went.

July 1 was a Thursday. Kavanaugh’s defense also relied on his insistence that the gathering could not have happened on a weeknight. “The event described by Dr. Ford presumably happened on a weekend because I believe everyone worked and had jobs in the summers,” he said. Kavanaugh later said his summer job in 1982 was mowing lawns. (“I had my own business of sorts.”)

Speaking of summer jobs, a book written by Judge says that the summer before his senior year of high school, “to raise money for football camp, I spent a few weeks working as a bag boy at the local supermarket.” This supports another statement of Ford’s when she described seeing Judge after the alleged incident at his job at a local Safeway supermarket. Judge writes in his book that, by then, he was “completely hooked” on alcohol and was frequently drunk. “Invariably I would be hungover” while working there, he wrote, which would mean drinking on weeknights.

Is it possible that teenagers might gather to drink on a Thursday night in the summer at a house with no parents home? Is it possible Kavanaugh went over to Timmy’s for “skis” (brewskis, apparently) and he and Judge journeyed on to another gathering? Could the night of July 1 be the night Ford was assaulted? Sounds worthy of further interrogation.